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Teachers write a wide range of texts for professional purposes, but little is known about this writing. ‘What do teachers write and what professional functions are accomplished through this writing?’ are underexplored questions. Accordingly, I study teachers’ writings as instances of Technical and Professional Communication (TPC). TPC focuses on everyday documents produced in workplaces. Technical documents are texts about how to use something: prescription information leaflets, road signs, IKEA assembly instructions. Professional communication is a broader umbrella term for all workplace texts – from emails to handwritten memos to press releases (Gerdes, 2026). Traditionally, TPC has focused on writing in businesses and non-profit organisations (Rosselot-Merritt & Bloch, 2023) – not schools.

Teachers’ invisible writing labour

Schoolteachers’ writing has been left out of TPC scholarship; what teachers write is rarely a focus of educational research. Previous work on ‘teachers as writers’ focuses on how teachers’ recreational and reflective writing shapes how teachers will then teach students to write (Cremin et al., 2020; Cremin & Oliver, 2017), rather than on writing for professional purposes.

This absence bothers me, as a teacher educator with a background in writing research and as a former schoolteacher.

This blog post explores teachers’ writing labour, drawing on a small, questionnaire-based exploratory study. Due to a quirk of convenience in recruiting, participants were nearly all Scottish school leaders. I’ll focus on their 35 responses, collected in late 2025. Beyond illuminating their labour, what emerges from this early data is that being a school leader requires professional writing expertise.

Figure 1: Participant positions

These participants spent substantial time – often between 40 and 150 hours per month – writing a wide range of professional documents (see figure 3). However, only four respondents affirmatively answered that they saw themselves as writers; two of those commented that they only said yes because completing the questionnaire made them realise how much they write!

Figure 2: Writer identity

Figure 3: What teachers write

Despite not identifying as (professional) writers, most respondents found writing enjoyable, citing how writing helped them:

• clarify their thoughts
• communicate about education to external audiences
• advocate for students
• enjoy digging into different kinds of educational evidence.

When reflecting on both difficulties and enjoyment, participants showed awareness that they shaped pieces of writing for different audiences and were alert to opportunities afforded by these genres. Participants did not view writing as purely functional or a task to accomplish – for them, professional writing has personal and communal value. Writing is a valued means of connection between the school and social services, families, regulatory bodies, government and community organisations. School leaders’ professional writing expertise facilitates these connections.

‘Participants did not view writing as purely functional or a task to accomplish – for them, professional writing has personal and communal value.’

Building writing knowledge

School leaders most frequently indicated that they learned to write professionally by looking at exemplars, developing their skills iteratively through repeated writing instances, sometimes with collegial input. For instance, one school leader learned by developing a sense of language, working with the Scottish Qualifications Authority, and ultimately ‘bending my way [of writing] to the preference of management, which can vary wildly’. Where writing-specific instruction was mentioned, it was usually academic writing at university.

Participants who do not see themselves as writers – often because they do not feel ‘good enough’ – still show insight into professional genres and have developed writing expertise. This raises questions: does an individual teacher/school leader identifying as a (professional) writer matter? It might. However, seeing teachers as professional writers matters for how we understand the teaching profession. It also raises the question about what responsibility teacher education providers bear for preparing teachers who can write professional documents. However we answer these questions, TPC and school leaders’ writing expertise facilitate many functions of the school system. Understanding this system, its limitations, and its civic functions requires taking school leaders’ professional and technical writing seriously.

To capture a broader picture of teachers’ writing across career phases and beyond Scotland, this study is ongoing. All teachers and school leaders, anywhere in the world, are welcome to participate: . Findings may inform how teacher education providers prepare teachers for their professional writing. Further work may illuminate how educators communicate with other stakeholders, offering opportunities to trace how ideas about education circulate in public and non-public discourse.

References

Cremin, T., & Oliver, L. (2017). Teachers as writers: A systematic review. Research Papers in Education, 32(3), 269–295.

Cremin, T., Myhill, D., Eyres, I., Nash, T., Wilson, A., & Oliver, L. (2020). Teachers as writers: Learning together with others. Literacy, 54(2), 49–59.

Gerdes, J. (2026). Professional and technical communication: An overview. Writing Commons LLC.

Rosselot-Merritt, J., & Bloch, J. (2023). Common thread, varied focus: Defining workplace in technical and professional communication. In L. Anderson (Ed.), Rewriting work (pp. 19–46). WAC Clearinghouse.